ER nurse going to med-surg

[DavidDudley]

Hello everyone,

So I have been an RN for 3 years now, most of my career has been in a correctional setting as well as doing home health but recently I was able to land an ER job and I absolutely love it. I love the staff, love my charge nurses, the overall work environment is great.

But with positives theres always negatives. I commute 40 minutes to work and I took a drastic pay cut going there. And with only 8 months of experience I can't go anywhere else. And my secondary home health job isin't really cutting it for me financially.

So I called a registry that's willing to send me to my local hospital that is walking distance from my house and pays great. But they said they can only send me to med-surg. So I said i'm game. But I'm pretty nervous.

How are registry nurses typically treated in med-surg? As an ER nurse, I'm probably going to have to go in there with a totally different mindset. What kind of mindset do I need to have? Will I be ok or will I drown?

[CrossCountryRN2008]

It gets very busy

[orangeson58]

If you ask me, you're insane to leave the ER for med-surg. I'm desperately trying to get the hell OUT of med-surg and go to either th ER or ICU.

[DavidDudley]

Just for clarification, I'm not leaving ER. I'm talking about picking up med-surg as a second job.

[ChristineN, BSN, RN]

I did med-surg before ER and it can be busy, but is a very different kind of busy than ER. You will essentially be able to plan out your whole shift when you come on, from med passes to scheduled lab draws. If you are doing day shift then the doctors will be rounding which can result in stat orders and a change of plan, but that really won't happen on nights unless your pt has a deterioration in condition. If you can handle ER, you should be fine in med-surg, you just need to remember that you are assessing the whole pt and not doing focused assessments as are common in the ER